Rainfall still flirting with southeast

The bulk of the heavier rain is still west of London and flirting with the far southeast again like it did yesterday. The main rainfall band is sprawled across central southern England and towards Lincolnshire, where it’s a thoroughly wet and miserable day with some heavier rain now starting to show its hand (fig 1).

Figure 1

Estimates from the weather radar indicate that Portland was the wettest station from 06 UTC with 20.8 mm, and by the looks of this mornings totals from the SYNOPs I wasn’t far out (fig 2).

Figure 2

I thought that the Met Office had now fixed the ‘spiking’ that they got from the Chenies radar (fig 1), but it looks like the tall trees there are still causing problems. Using the position of each of the six spokes that radiate west from the radar site, you could probably map the position of each of the offending trees. After extensive digging on the Internet I couldn’t locate any of the information regarding the tree’s at Chenies that I used in an article a couple of years ago, but this image from the lane that runs past the site gives you a better picture of the problem courtesy of Google street view (fig 3).

Figure 3 – Courtesy of Google Street View

In the aerial view I can now see why the tree’s are such a problem for the Met Office and how they affect the radar signal when they are in leaf (fig 4), and by means of the same image I can also see why they’ll never be removed. The problem lies in a large ‘stately’ home which lies almost due west of the radar. By the look of it is the original house that RAF Chenies was first built around in the 1930’s, and may have served as the admin offices and quarters for officers, but apart from the radar tower, a large aerial and a few other buildings associated with the 1950’s listening post, the rest of the RAF station has been demolished. The house remains though, and sits in a prime location in an isolated spot in the Chilterns, looking very well maintained and very expensive (fig 4). Interestingly, it’s the only time when I’ve ever used street view that I’ve found that I can’t drag the marker to where I can gain a view of this house. Try it yourself, drop the little man and it will take you back to the gates of the radar site. Be warned each time you do it a little red light will flash at Google HQ and all your personal details will be entered into a report at GCHQ. Maybe I’ve stumbled on Theresa May’s house and I don’t mean Chequers? It’s amazing what you can learn in an article ostensibly about weather radar in my blog.